


That Warm Thrill of Confusion (Or, A Clearing of the Air)

by Straight_Outta_Hobbiton



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bedsharing, But like Cathartic Tears, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Lots of tears, M/M, Post Traumatic Sex Disorder, also sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 00:27:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20630060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straight_Outta_Hobbiton/pseuds/Straight_Outta_Hobbiton
Summary: Richie gets caught in the Deadlights and sees the future. He then immediately takes action, with great success.





	That Warm Thrill of Confusion (Or, A Clearing of the Air)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so fucking tired of dead gays. Here's how I fix it + another attempt at pornography. I wrote it in about eight hours total, so like. Yeah. :)

Richie blinks away the harsh brightness of the Deadlights to find Eddie standing over him, relief painted across his face in the dark as he tells Richie over and over again, _ I think I killed him, I think I killed him— _

Richie doesn’t think, kicking Eddie in the shins with as much force as he can muster, clumsy and uncoordinated as he is in the burning aftermath of what can only be insanity. Eddie topples, winding Richie when he collapses across his chest. Fumbling, Richie wraps a numb arm around Eddie’s wriggling middle and rolls, hissing as his shoulder jars against a loose rock as they tumble over the edge and into one of the lower caverns.

“Richie, what the fuck—!”

There’s a terrible crack of breaking rock somewhere above them, and moments later they’re showered in sharp-edged shrapnel that cuts at their cheeks when they look up, terrified.

_ “Come on, Richie, why won’t you share your toys with me?” _

“Richie?”

Eddie’s hands find Richie’s face, fingers shaking as he cups Richie’s head and pulls him up. Richie forces his eyes open. There’s a crack in his glasses, splitting Eddie’s fright-white face into two separate, worried frowns that are too close to Richie’s face.

A crack— not blood.

Richie’s arms feel like lead, but he forces himself to move anyway, hand landing heavily on Eddie’s shoulder.

“I’m alright,” he wheezes, trying to give him a reassuring squeeze. His fingers don’t quite cooperate, though, and Eddie’s expression doesn’t change.

“We’ve got to get back to the others,” Eddie says. “We need to get out of here.”

He’s right, of course. He usually is.

Richie lets his hand drop, bracing himself on the filthy, wet stone and pushing himself carefully to his feet. The world is spinning, slightly, but he ignores it, focusing instead on Eddie’s face. There’s no blood on his mouth, no gaping who where his stomach should be. He isn’t gasping like a fish, numb fingers reaching out as he describes the leper he’d fought in the basement of the Derry pharmacy. He isn’t limp, lifeless, propped up against cold stone to die alone while he waits for his friends to do what they came here to do and  _ kill this fucking clown. _

“I know what to do,” he tells Eddie, swallowing around the knot forming in his throat as he looks into Eddie’s miserable, frightened eyes. “Eddie, I know what to do.”

Eddie looks at him like— like he’s crazy, which is fair. Still, Richie stares back, jaw clenched as he makes his best I’m-not-fucking-around face because for once,  _ he’s not fucking around. _

For a moment, neither of them move, heedless of the sounds of It doing something else horrible and deadly. For a moment, Richie looks into Eddie’s face and thinks,  _ Thank God. _

“Okay,” Eddie says finally, nodding sharply. “Okay, you know what to do. So what do we do?”

Richie takes a deep breath.

  
  


*.*

They bully the clown to death. They call it mean names until it shrinks down into a weird, deflated baby. Just for kicks (and maybe— definitely— revenge), Richie tears off its stinger, throwing it into the murky with a half-crazed shout as they circle it like wolves. Mike, thank God, has the balls to actually reach out and touch it, pulling its rotting, gray heart from under its ribs like the world’s most undesirable prize.

They crush it, all six of them, like some weird ritual that somehow makes Richie feel good about the cold, black goop that coats his fingers when they do. Eventually, it flakes away like burnt paper, floating upward into the darkness as the Deadlights burn out overhead.

One by one, their hands drop, exhaustion and the strange, empty feeling that usually follows Richie’s climactic experience dragging at his limbs. The walls are crumbling around them, stones bigger than Eddie’s mom dropping into the water from so high above Richie can’t track them, and all he wants to do is lay down in the filth under his shoes and sleep for a year and a half.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Eddie says from over his shoulder, wiping his hand anxiously across his already filthy shirt. “We’re gonna get buried alive.”

Everyone looks at Bill. The answer should be obvious, Richie thinks, a little exasperated. But then, that’s how it’s always been with them.

“Yeah,” he says, looking between them. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

  
  


*.*

  
  


Times have changed, Richie thinks as he eyes the sign warning swimmers against the impulse to jump off the cliff into the algae green lake below. Time has marched on, and yet here they all are again, toeing off their shoes and leaping off the edge even though someone much smarter than them put up a sign telling them not to do it.

Jesus Christ, they’re all morons. How the fuck did the survive It?

“Do you know how many parasites are swimming around in this water?” Eddie asks as Richie does his best to scrub the filth that’s already hardening into his hair and scalp. “God help us, we’ve killed the clown just to get fucking worms—”

“You don’t have to worry about the parasites, Eddie,” Bev says, eyes closed as she floats by on her back. “The radioactive waste that gets dumped here probably already took care of that problem.” She cracks open an eyelid just in time to see Eddie’s reaction, mouth curving into a familiar smile as he blanches, his mouth pinching as he looks down at his grimy, torn clothes.

Richie looks up and he can’t help it— he laughs. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and he’s not the only one, either. It’s ridiculous, the abject misery on his face as he stares around like the water’s gonna kill him— like  _ anything _ can kill any of them after everything that’s just happened.

He jumps at Eddie because he can, tackling him into the water with a tremendous splash as Eddie squawks his furious surprise. There are hands clawing at his at his arms and shoulders, but it’s familiar, a fight he’s had a thousand times because for once, it doesn’t hurt.

They come up for air in a tangle of flailing limbs, Eddie tight against Richie’s side as he pulls him by the waist up out of the water. He’s sputtering, choking, swearing, his palms slapping at Richie’s shoulders as he tries to wriggle free.

“Richie, you asshole!” he shrieks, gasping for the breath to keep screaming. “Richie, there’s water in my _ mouth, _ that’s so fucking _ gross—” _

Richie can feel Eddie’s heart pounding in his chest where they’re pressed together. He can feel each time his lungs expand as he breathes, because he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s _ alive— _

“Richie?” Eddie suddenly isn’t struggling anymore. There are hands on Richie’s face, Eddie’s hands, forcing him to turn and look into dark, worried eyes. It’s then, suddenly, that Richie has tipped over the edge of hysterical laughter into just plain old hysteria.

He’s fucking sobbing right now, and he didn’t notice.

It’s… probably not a good look.

  
  


*.*

  
  


Eventually they get back to the hotel. Richie doesn’t remember much after his breakdown in the lake, but when he wakes up again after having collapse into the frankly terrible spring mattress of his borrowed bed like a puppet with its strings cut, he finds himself under the covers in clean boxers, an undershirt, and two sets of arms wrapped around his middle, attached to the two bodies pinning him in place from either side. Bev’s hair, gloriously red and smelling vaguely of lavender shampoo tickles his nose as slowly, she tilts her head to look up at him.

Even this close, their noses practically touching, Richie can’t see shit. Still, he can picture the looks she’s giving him pretty well, the gentle concern that she’s always given him when he fucked up and said something personal.

“Hey, Richie,” she whispers, like maybe she’d been waiting for him to wake up.

“Hey, Bev.” His voice cracks and he winces. “Wild night, huh?” It seems like the joke to make— it’s a rare morning that Richie’s woken up with more than one person in bed, and never,  _ ever  _ before has one of those other people been male. The line of heat running along Richie’s back, the breath puffing across the nape of his neck, the flat chest and the bump that’s just a little bit lower, a little too close for comfort—

“Eddie didn’t want to leave,” Bev says softly. “He… I think you scared him a little, Richie. You scared all of us.”

Richie swallows. He doesn’t know why, but he’d expected Bill, or maybe Ben— he was always into this kind of gay, cuddly shit. But no. Of course not.

“Oh,” he says, voice small. “Well, that’s nice of him.”

Bev shifts, one hand coming up to tuck a curl behind his ear.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she tells him. “I told Bill I’d keep an eye out for anything, but… there’s nothing to look out for.”

Richie knows what she means. Exhausted and achey as he feels, the twilight of the early morning hours doesn’t feel quite so heavy as it did yesterday, as if something terrible’s been sucked out of the darkness, something that Richie hadn’t really been aware had been watching him from the moment he’d stepped in foot in Derry— longer than that, even.

It’s probably been watching him—  _ them— _ since the day they were born. Richie hadn’t really thought that before.

“Richie.”

“Yeah, Bev?”

“What did you see? In the Deadlights.”

Richie feels himself go stiff in Bev’s arms. From behind him, Eddie’s grip tightens, like maybe he noticed.

Richie forces himself to relax.

“What makes you think I saw anything?” he asks, stalling. He doesn’t want to think about it. He can’t bear to think about it.

“I think that’s just the way it goes,” Bev says, because, oh, right, she’s been having visions since they were twelve. “I think… I think the Deadlights… they show you the truth, don’t they? The most horrible truth in the world.”

His throat tightens.

“It killed him,” he says abruptly. “I saw him standing over me, just like he was, and, and—”

It’s stinger had gone clean through Eddie’s stomach, dark with the blood splattered across Richie’s face, congealing on his glasses. Eddie had looked so surprised, joy twisting into agony and frightened shock as he looked down between the spike protruding from his middle and Richie’s open-mouthed, frozen stare.

He’d said Richie’s name. He’d _ begged. _

Richie puts a hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds that escape his throat. He’s crying again, goddammit— he doesn’t think he’s cried since he was a kid, and yet here he is, losing his shit for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

“Oh, Rich…” Beverly shifts closer, tilting up and over until Richie’s head is pillowed against her shoulder, one hand moving to cradle his head to her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“I changed it,” Richie says, because fuck, he’s already said the worst of it, right? “I changed it, though. It didn’t kill him.”

“No,” Bev agrees. “No, he’s right here, Richie. He’s fine.”

“Thank fuck,” Richie says, hiding his face in the raggedy collar of her sleep shirt. “Thank fuck for that.”

He must have spoken too loudly, because Eddie shifts suddenly, his hand sliding from its resting place on Richie’s stomach up to his chest before he resettles again with a little grunt, somehow managing to press himself even more tightly along Richie’s spine, his nose now burrowed firmly into the center of Richie’s back as he relaxes again, apparently still asleep.

Richie stays absolutely, perfectly still, his heart hammering under Eddie’s fingers as he tries his best not to react. Did he wake up? Richie can’t see his face— wouldn’t be able to see him even if they were facing each other, because he’s practically legally _ blind  _ at this point in his life, so really, it’s up to Bev to warn him, except she isn’t saying anything, so he must still be asleep, or not full awake, at least, right? Right?

“Richie, it’s alright,” Bev says softly, rubbing circles in his cheek with her thumb. He probably needs to shave, but fuck if he can bring himself to care right now. “Richie, he’s here. We’re all here, and we’re alright. We’re _ alive.” _

“Not Stan,” Richie gasps, because it’s all hitting at once, now, all the awful things that have happened, that he’d forgotten. God, how could he have forgotten Stan? Sweet, scared, Stan, who’d been the first mate to Bill’s captaincy since they were in diapers, who’d never made fun of Richie when he cried, who was the sort of thoughtful that brought shower caps to keep spiders out of his friends’ hair and kept all their parents’ phone numbers tacked up on the wall of the Clubhouse, just in case of what, Richie doesn’t know.

Beverly’s fingers tighten briefly against his jaw, a flinch in the form of a muscle spasm in her fingers. He thinks he might be shaking, but he isn’t sure. He isn’t sure he cares if he is, either, though he should, probably.

“No,” she agrees, voice soft and sad. “Not Stan.”

And there’s the fucking rub, isn’t it? They were never safe, not really, even with their memories gone and their lives supposedly fully-formed and far away from this cursed fucking town. It had been watching them, ruining them, twisting them all up so tight that Stan didn’t even have to come home to find himself bleeding out in his own bathtub.

The fucked up this is that he thought he  _ had _ to do it, that he thought he wasn’t strong enough, when he was, he _ was, _ because Richie knew Stan, and Stan was no more of a pussy than any of them were.

He was just more honest about it.

  
  


*.*

  
  


At some point, Richie must have fallen asleep again, because when he opens his eyes, the room is filled with early afternoon light and Beverly is gone, her pillow cold and the blankets tucked tightly against Richie’s stomach.

That being said, he’s not alone. Eddie’s arms are still wrapped tightly around him, pulling Richie’s back to his chest and holding him there. Richie’s foot is pinned loosely between his shins, the bend of Eddie’s knee and the length of his thigh tucked against the back of Richie’s as leans forward, warm and heavy and surprisingly broad compared to his own, narrow frame.

Slowly, Richie shifts, wincing at the tingling that shoots up his arm as he frees it from beneath his own weight. He feels sore, like he hasn’t moved since he fell into bed the night before, which honestly, he probably hasn’t. He’s too cozy to have shifted in his sleep, even if Beverly’s disappearance in the night gave him the opportunity to starfish across the other half of the bed.

“Richie?”

Richie freezes, peering over his shoulder to find Eddie’s dark eyes peering up at him, two dark spots in the vaguest impression of a familiar face.

“Hey, Eddie,” he manages, reaching hopefully for the nightstand for his glasses, but no luck. His fingers find nothing but smooth wood and the base of the ancient, kill-a-man heavy brass lamp that. “Fuck.”

“Bev took your glasses to the optometrist’s around the corner,” Eddie says, letting his hand slide to rest at the small of Richie’s back. “She wanted to see if they could replace the cracked lens.”

The touch makes Richie shiver despite himself. Eddie’s fingers push at the edge of his undershirt where it rode up in the night, warm and gentle and maybe a little too—

Richie lays down again with a groan, breaking the connection to flop down onto his back. His elbow brushes Eddie’s stomach as he arranges his arms as comfortably as he can manage.

For a moment, there’s quiet. He and Eddie lie there, Eddie facing him as Richie stares at the ceiling. He can’t see, but he can almost picture Eddie’s expression, his furrowed brow, the wrinkles in his forehead, the strange intensity in his eyes he always gets when he’s really, actually worried.

He has good reason to be worried. They all have good reason to be worried. This shit was fucking traumatic, alright? And if the memories don’t fade— and Richie has a feeling they won’t, this time— they’re going to carry this forever, the darkness, and the pain, and the—

Richie yelps as Eddie pinches the soft skin of his inner arm, jerking away with a glare.

“What the fuck, Eddie?”

“Stop making that face,” Eddie says. “You look like a fucking idiot.”

“What face? I’m just fucking sitting here, asshole—”

“That face like the world’s gonna come crashing down on us. We did it, man, we killed It—”

“I know,  _ Jesus, _ Eddie—”

“So what’s with the fucking face?”

“It’s my goddamn face, unfortunately I can’t help that situation—”

“You were fucking thinking about It—”

“What, a guy can’t think now?”

Eddie inhales sharply, reaching up to rub a hand over his mouth like he’s trying to keep whatever answer he’s got for Richie clamped tightly behind his teeth.

There’s a pause as Eddie gets himself together. Richie leaves him to it, swallowing against the anxiety building in the back of his throat as he twists at the rumpled covers gathered at his waist.

“Richie.”

He tries not to flinch at the gentleness in Eddie’s tone, eyes resolutely fixed on the cracked paint above his head. He wishes he had his glasses, the ones he had when he was a kid, that made his eyes three times too big for his face and were thick enough to hide behind.

“What, Eddie?”

Another pause.

“Are you okay?”

Richie can’t help it— he laughs, reaching up to hide his face in his hands as tears threaten  _ again.  _ God, this is getting ridiculous.

Eddie stays quiet as he waits for Richie to calm down, his eyes fixed on his profile with an intensity that makes his stomach bottom out. Screwing his eyes shut, he takes a deep breath, letting his hands curl into fists under his chin as he finally turns to look at him.

“No,” Richie says. “No, I think I’m well and truly fucked up, this time around.”

Eddie hums.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Me too.”

Eddie pushes himself up onto his elbow, his palm landing somewhere above Richie’s head as Eddie leans over him. He touches Richie again, fingers skimming across his forearm before wrapping around his wrist.

“You know what, though?” Eddie asks.

Richie looks up. He can’t see Eddie’s expression, but his eyebrows don’t seem knotted together, and the shape of his mouth is— is—

Richie’s heart is pounding. He wonders if Eddie can feel it where he’s holding Richie’s wrist, if he understands why.

“What, Eddie?”

Eddie’s face is very close, suddenly. His mouth tastes like shit, morning breath and the leftovers of a nightcap that Richie should have been jealous of.

He’s not, though. Instead, he’s mostly surprised, his mouth going slack and open as his eyes flutter shut and Eddie bears down on him, one hand moving to pin Richie to the mattress while the other tangles itself in Richie’s hair and pulls, forcing him to tilt up his chin and— oh, oh, that’s. Something.

Richie’s mind goes blank as he reaches up to pull Eddie closer, his other hand scrabbling to find purchase on Eddie’s bare skin as he shifts again, letting the rest of his weight settle across Richie’s hips and thighs, one knee settling between his legs. He’s warm, hairier than Richie would have thought, a patch of dark, coarse curls that makes Richie groan prickling at his skin even through the flimsy fabric of his undershirt. He might be smaller than Richie, but he’s solid, built, almost, heavy but in a good way as he covers Richie’s body with his own.

It occurs to Richie quite suddenly that Eddie isn’t wearing a shirt. He got into bed with Richie (and Bev, but that’s beside the point) without a shirt on, and spent the whole night spooning Richie, because that’s a normal things that friends do.

Even if they weren’t actively making out, Richie likes to think he would have had questions.

Not now, though, because Eddie’s pulling away, breathing hard. He looks down at Richie, black eyes and black eyebrows and a smudge of swollen pink that has to be his mouth, and—

“Fuck, I wish I could see,” Richie says, a little helpless. He sounds wrecked when he says it, too, startling a laugh out of Eddie that Richie can feel in his own chest.

It’s— it’s fucking _ hot,  _ is what it is, hot enough that Richie can’t do anything but let his palm slide over the finer hair on Eddie’s back to clamp down on the nape of his neck, pulling him down once more.

Eddie lets him, jerking his hips in an aborted thrust that makes Richie whimper and push back, acutely aware of the fact that one, he’s hard, and two, Eddie’s knee is in the first place to be taken advantage of. Eddie pushes again, this time with purpose, and Richie hears himself whine because oh, _ fuck,  _ that’s everything he’s ever wanted, isn’t it?

He’s never actually done this before, not with a guy. Richie’s wanted to— God, he’s wanted to— but the men who’d caught his interest, who’d made him consider maybe inviting them back to his hotel room for a drink after a set… they’d never been right, exactly, and it made Richie uncomfortable when he thought about it for too long.

This is clearly not the situation on Eddie’s part. He pushes and pulls at Richie’s body, maneuvering him like he knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it. He grins into Richie’s neck when he moves lower to pressing wet, sucking kisses to the skin he finds there, his laughter coming in hot little puffs as he moves to pin Richie by the shoulder instead as he shoves Richie’s undershirt up and out of his way as he moves lower, lower,  _ lower— _

Eddie palms the bulge of Richie’s cock like it’s a prize, a flash of grinning white crossing his face before he dips his head, hot breath ghosting Richie’s dick as he mouths at him through the thin, damp fabric.

“Oh, _ shit,” _ Richie mutters, eyes fixed on Eddie’s face as slowly, he peels back the plain black fabric, leaving Richie bare under his eyes save for the undershirt rolled up to Richie’s armpits and an expression like maybe he’s hit Richie over the head with a two-by-four.

“You look like an idiot,” Eddie tells him fondly. “Hang on a second.”

Richie shoves his fingers in his mouth as Eddie ducks his head again, swallowing him down like it’s easy, like he’s done it a hundred times before.

Fuck, who knows, maybe he has. Maybe he took the time in between weekend business trips and dinners with the wife whose name Richie doesn’t know to find tall, skinny guys with dirty mouths and chunky glasses to suck off in the back of the kind of bar that Richie’s always been too pussy to go to—

Eddie swallows and Richie’s thoughts scatter, fingers clenching in thick, short hair that’s soft without product keeping it in place. His thighs are straining with the effort to keep them from snapping shut around Eddie’s head, and after about a minute, he reaches up and pushes, forcing Richie’s knees open and back until he can see everything— everything.

Richie feels heat flush low in his belly as Eddie pulls away, sitting back on his heels to— to _ look. _ It makes him squirm, the feeling of Eddie’s eyes roving across his face, his chest, his ass. It feels… it feels like he’s burning, like his entire world has been reduced to the points of contact between them— Eddie’s hands on his thighs, his knees against Richie’s ass…

Fuck, he must look beautiful, leaning over Richie the way he is. He wishes he had his glasses, cracked or not.

“Fuck, Richie,” Eddie breathes, breaking the quiet with a groan of his own. “Fuck, you’re so—”

“I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve,” Richie blurts out, because fuck, why not ruin the moment while he still can?

Eddie stills, fingers clenching spasmodically where they’re still wrapped around Richie’s thighs.

“What?”

Richie swallows.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve,” he says again. “I think— I think even when I couldn’t remember you, I— I—”

Eddie surges forward, one hand fumbling for the front of his sweatpants as the other finds Richie’s hair again, his mouth sealing itself to Richie’s as he goes, hips moving frantically as skin presses to skin and the sense of finally fills the air.

Richie knows it’ll end quickly; besides all the recent excitement that’s gotten in the way of his regularly scheduled jack-off time, he hasn’t been with another person since… well, since he broke up with his last girlfriend, four, maybe five years ago. He’s a little touch-sensitive right now, and Eddie doesn’t seem that far behind him, worming one hand between them to grasp them both in one large hand and stroking.

_ “Eddie…” _ Richie’s voice goes high and reedy as his orgasm comes crashing down on him, throwing his head back as Eddie doesn’t stop, dropping his hand to brace himself as he thrusts up into Richie’s stomach, the erratic pushes of his hard cock against Richie’s skin almost enough for Richie to want to try for round two.

Eddie’s starting to sweat under Richie’s touch, skin slick and hot and wonderful as Richie pushes back, not trusting his voice not to beg as Eddie gasps in his ear, mouth soft and open as his hips stutter to a stop and moans, bowing his head to bury his face in the junction of Richie’s neck and shoulder as he comes all over Richie’s chest and stomach.

It’s kind of gross. Mostly, though, Richie thinks it’s kind of hot.

It takes a minute for Eddie to catch his breath, bowed over Richie like he’s praying, nose squashed against Richie’s bony shoulder as the world slows down again and the desperation goes, leaving just them, exhausted once more but… better.

With a grunt, Eddie pushes off of him, rolling to fall onto his back in the space beside Richie.

“It wasn’t just you,” Eddie says after a minute, turning to look at Richie.

“What?”

“You’ve been in love with me since we were twelve,” Eddie repeats back to him, making Richie wince. “I’m just saying: it wasn’t just you.”

Richie blinks, uncomprehending. Eddie only stares at him, waiting, until Richie’s eyes go wide and his face goes pink again.

“Oh,” he manages. “That’s— interesting.”

Eddie snorts and honestly, that’s fair.

“Yeah, dickwad,” he says, reaching over to grab the pack of wet wipes he probably brought with him for he night and tossing them at Richie’s head. “I love you too.”

Richie blinks at him.

“You what?”

He can’t see it, but he knows Eddie’s rolling his eyes.

“I love you, Richie,” he says. “I’ve loved you since we were twelve. Now can you please be a goddamn adult and wipe the cum off your chest or do I have to do it for you?”

Richie doesn’t move. He— what—

“What is happening?” he asks. “You— I—?”

Eddie shakes his head, sighing as he plucks the wet wipes from Richie’s hand and pops it open.

“Next time, I’m going to demand a shower,” Eddie promises him, wiping gently at Richie’s chest with a cold wipe. “So please, appreciate the moment for what it is and shut the fuck up, just for a minute.”

Of course, Richie can’t do that.

“Next time?” he repeats, and goddammit, he sounds so fucking helpful, doesn’t he?

Eddie makes a noise like Richie’s an idiot. Maybe he is, he doesn’t know.

“Yeah, Richie. Next time.” Eddie throws the soiled wipe over the edge of the bed and settles back onto the bed, this on his stomach. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Richie can feel himself start to smile. It’s not— this isn’t just handled, now. They’re probably going to have to talk about stuff, figure things out. Eddie’s still married, after all, and Richie, well, Richie’s kind of a fuck up.

For once, he keeps his mouth shut and enjoys the moment.

(It’s a pretty good moment.)

**Author's Note:**

> And so there's that. I'm so glad Ray Person and Stefon are in love and not dead.


End file.
